The High Costs of Excessive Pressure, Bullying, Competition and Cliques: Will Parents Stop the Madness?
Dr. Tim Jordan is a regular contributor to St. Louis Kids
"It is vital to teach Johnny and Mary how to read and write and think and compute. But if they don't learn to love themselves and each other, the rest isn't worth anything. Self-esteem and the capacity for loving are the most basic skills each human being has the need and right to learn about.”" - Carl Rogers
It's hard to be a kid sometimes. I'm beginning to think it's harder today than it was a generation ago. Why? Mostly because the teasing, cliques and bullying that we experienced in middle school and high school happen today as early as first grade. I continue to get more requests from parents to counsel young children and from teachers to work with classrooms about these friendship issues.
The cost of being excluded and bullied is high for all kids but more so, in my experience, when it occurs in early grade school. I recently ran a personal growth retreat for 8 to 11-year-olds and many of these normal, everyday kids had experienced teasing and bullying. Even at this tender age, they were already making unhealthy decisions about themselves because of their experiences.
Some kids might decide "there's something wrong with me," or "I'm weird" or "different," or that "no one likes me" or "I’ll never fit in."
Some young kids avoid friendships for fear of being hurt again. They may decide "I am stupid, uncool, not pretty enough or good enough."
And of course if you approach school or any social situation with these negative beliefs about yourself, you are set up to have trouble making friends or to become a target.
Why is this happening at earlier ages? There are a number of reasons:
Our competitive, high-pressure culture has made kids too invested in winning and being the best. I think it is a tragedy that kids as young as first grade are going through tryouts and being hand-picked by varsity high school coaches for inclusion on select sports teams. That kind of competitive energy bleeds over into the classroom, making kids less cooperative and less invested in what's good for the whole classroom community.
Because kids spend most of their waking hours in supervised activities, they haven't learned to monitor themselves and work things out the way we did as kids. Our baseball teams were picked on a sandlot, far from any adults, and using our hands and a baseball bat to play the game.
Kids today turn to adults to handle their conflicts, and thus when the cat's away, the mice will play. This is why, when teachers turn their backs, all kinds of friendship mischief occurs because kids haven't had to learn to handle each other.
Schools don't have time to work with kids on these issues. Having pretty character-education posters on the wall isn't nearly enough. Kids need time to get to know each other better, to talk through conflicts and issues, to be more responsible for creating a close classroom community. Because of the academic pressures from No Child Left Behind mandates and all of the resulting testing, there's no time left over for building this essential skill.
Obnoxious, immature, insecure, cliquey parents! Sorry to be so judgmental and blunt, but the classes I've worked with who had the most friendship problems had parents who were the most cliquey too. Most mornings, the parents could be found huddled on the parking lot gossiping in small groups. And they were way too emotionally invested and involved in their children's friendship issues. Kids tend to mirror the adults around them, so there you are.
We allow it! As a society, we've bought into this out-of-balance pushing and competition. I can't tell you how many younger boys I've seen who attend parochial grade schools who have been excluded and teased because they aren't athletic.
If you're not on the "right" soccer team by first or second grade, you are out of the loop because families' lives evolve around the endless sports seasons. Parents hang out with other parents who have athletic kids on these select teams, and so other kids and their parents are out of the social loop. I wish I were exaggerating.
Kids who have experienced bullying and teasing need help to make sure they are not internalizing it or making negative decisions about themselves.
At the recent weekend retreat we did an exercise where the kids wrote down any negative beliefs/thoughts they had about themselves and then ceremoniously threw them into a fire. They then wrote out more positive and true thoughts and beliefs to take with them as a reminder of how perfect and awesome they are.
And let me be clear: these were not a collection of troubled, wayward kids. They were regular, garden-variety kids like yours. When I ask kids in grade school, middle school and high school about how many of them have been teased, bullied or excluded, they all raise their hands. When I ask how many of them have ever done the teasing or bullying, they also all raise their hands.
Some kids are targeted more because they are tall, short, chubby, smart or in anyway different. Some kids take it more personally because they are more sensitive. But make no mistake about it; they are all involved in it at some level each day.
I started Camp Weloki almost 20 years ago because I felt kids needed a safe place to talk through the normal ups and downs of growing up. And I saw that our busy family life and busy school days weren’t providing opportunities to learn these essential relationship and life skills. But there are things you can do today in your homes to turn this phenomenon around.
First, watch that you don’t overvalue winning and being the best. Make sure your kids have time for some free play with their friends where they can manage and supervise themselves. Listen to their stories, empathize and then problem-solve with them about what they could do differently.
Encourage your schools and teachers to take time to let kids learn how to interact, manage conflicts, prevent cliques, exclusion and gossip, and be responsible for creating a caring classroom community. I don't think it is developmentally normal or necessary that kids go through these challenges at such early ages. It's our job as parents to bring it back to more developmentally appropriate and manageable levels.
Dr. Tim Jordan, a developmental pediatrician, is a regular contributor to St. Louis Kids. He is the author of "Keeping Your Family Grounded When You're Flying by the Seat of Your Pants" as well as other publications and frequently speaks to local and national audiences about parenting and family issues. He and his wife, Anne Jordan, run personal growth summer camps (Camp Weloki) for kids in grade school, middle school and high school, as well as weekend retreats in the fall and spring. His private practice is in Chesterfield. To find out more, call (636) 530-1883 or go to www.weloki.com.
